The nation’s homelessness czar in the George W. Bush administration says that programs enacted back then have had a dramatic effect on cutting the chronically homeless population, but warns that families are increasingly being left out in the cold as the economy struggles to recover.

“There have never been as many poor people in our country as there are now,” Philip F. Mangano told PJM today, adding that the “highest number ever in the history of our country” are living in “deep poverty,” which is 50 percent below the poverty line and under.

“One of the great indicators of homelessness is poverty,” he said. “Poverty is the waystation before you fall into homelessness.” And with the economic indicators such as the unemployment rate stagnant as they have been, “you can anticipate more people falling into homelessness.”

They’re startling, tragic facts that rarely make headlines in a campaign dominated by conversations about the middle class and a Congress inundated in debate over middle- and upper-income tax cut extensions.

“The poverty rate has never jumped higher than in the past few years and the media is silent on it,” Mangano said. “Most media coverage is focused on middle-class trauma during the recession, not focused on the very poor.”

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a federation of public and private agencies that reports to the administration and Congress, noted in January’s annual report that the homelessness rate declined by 1 percent between 2009 and 2011. The annual Hunger and Homelessness Survey released in December by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, though, found an average 6 percent rise in homelessness from September 2010 to August 2011, with a 16 percent jump in homeless families.

In the mayors’ survey, unemployment led the list of homelessness causes among both families and homeless adults.

“If we want to make progress in terms of pulling people away from the precipice then it’s very important that the engine of our economy get humming again,” said Mangano, stressing that especially means decreasing stubbornly high jobless rates. “The restoration of our economy is an important ingredient in the long-term solution.”

Mangano became Bush’s executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness in 2002 and ushered in a new way of approaching the goal to end homelessness: looking at the problem through a business lens instead of a social services lens. The distinction, he said, is attending to the immediate needs of the homeless in a social-services capacity versus looking at that population and thinking how to solve their homelessness.

“No longer are we wandering in the wilderness, wondering what might work,” he said. “We actually know what to do.”

It was the 10-year-plan templates, pulling together federal agencies, governors, and mayors, that were put in place during the Bush administration that Mangano credits with making a serious dent in the chronically homeless population — a 37 percent decrease between 2005 and 2009.

Overall homelessness decreased 12 percent during this period.

The basics of thinking about it like a businessman? Invest in innovative solutions that have proven results with hard data to back them up. And that meant stable, long-term housing before quick fixes.

Mangano pulled out the cost-benefit analysis: The housing-first strategy costs between $12,000 and $25,000 per person, per year. It can cost between $35,000 and $150,000 per person, per year “literally to sustain a person in homelessness” with “random ricocheting” from one temporary solution to the next.

“You don’t need to be Warren Buffett or even Suze Orman to figure out which of those is the better investment,” he said.

For the first time, the issue of homelessness was spoken in the vernacular of both politicians and the business community — and what Bush defined early on as a signature policy initiative was off to a running start. Each year, when department chiefs came to the budget table to make a case for their funding, the programs to end homelessness walked away with more cash — eight consecutive years of increased resources for the homeless under the Bush administration.

“That was predicated on demonstrating that there were hard results,” Mangano said. “That line of argument is essential in building political will and sustaining it. That’s what will get the job done. You need to be able to muster the argument of investment leading to results.”

Showing that investments worked with research and data to back it up, he said, was the “best inoculation against cuts.”

The approach drew plaudits from mayors on both sides of the aisle as they implemented 10-year plans in their cities. In Chattanooga, Tenn., the smallest city to participate in the seeding stage of the housing-first initiatives, homelessness ended for nine out of 10 of the most vulnerable chronically homeless.

These mayors, many Democrats, wanted Mangano to stay on through the Obama administration, he said. But the new president wanted to change course.

“I served the first 100 days and they eventually told me that they wanted to have their own team,” Mangano said. Obama’s transition team told him “we appreciate what you did, but we just want our own team.”

A Boston native, Mangano returned to Massachusetts where he would become president and CEO of the American Round Table to Abolish Homelessness, a role in which he continues to collaborate with mayors and governors to formulate and implement strategies shaped by cost studies and cost-benefit analysis with a focus on one final, tell-all metric: decreasing the number of those without a roof over their heads.

“Many faith-based nonprofits get a new vision of what their calling is, which isn’t to manage homelessness but to end it,” Mangano said of how the public mindset is evolving “from simply expending to investing.”

He hopes that the lessons learned from the first decade of this century continue to be applied moving forward by the White House and “that rhetoric is undergirded by investment only in the most substantive ideas.”

“If those basic business principles are not sustained it is possible that the rhetoric goes a bit hollow again,” Mangano said.

And resources allocated to the homeless in Obama’s stimulus plan, rapidly placing those who fell out of the housing market into new housing, have been exhausted.

“I don’t think anyone thought the recession would last as long as it has,” Mangano said. “The sustained nature of the recession and the inability to pull out certainly is a factor in the number of homeless families we’re seeing.”

Far from Americans suffering from compassion fatigue, he said he believes that the recession has given many a new understanding of the challenges faced by the poor — and perhaps a “solution fatigue” in which those dedicating their lives to helping the less fortunate want to see results.

“People who themselves are teetering because of the recession increased their compassion because they have a new understanding of how vulnerable we are,” Mangano said.

But the former homelessness czar said he’s seen the 10-year plans formulated in those years offer “inspiration and remobilization” to communities as they see results from the business-oriented strategies. It tells communities if they “not only approach problems with their hearts but their heads they can make progress.”

Mangano sees on the horizon great opportunity to scale what we now know works to bring an end to chronic homelessness by virtue of private investment.

“We have to think not only about best practices,” he said. “We have to be thinking about next practices.”

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
pre-Boomer Marine brat

“… and the media is silent on it”

Martin Luther King, Jr., might as well never have spoken about content of character.

Obama’s opponents are just clinging to their jobs and their savings. Don’t worry about that kind of stuff. Just reelected Barack Obama and you won’t need that. Everything will be free! Everything you want, yes everything, he will provide it. And remember, I said free, all free!

Basically, they have been designed, like most other gubamint statistics, to keep criminal politicians in power.

There are so many ways to disprove the idiot statistics that books could be written.

The worst off 1% of the US today would be in the top 5% in Bangladesh or 99% of the countries that ever existed before about 1970.

Essetially, “poverty” means the lowest 20% of incomes. So it can never be abolished. If we all drove 8 cylinder Mercedes, the ones with the oldest Mercedes would be “poor”. What a joke. Why doesn’t anybody say it.

The other thing about it is that the marxists use the “data” to rile up twice the 20%, because everybody thinks they have a raw deal anyway.

Since I work in the field, I can sincerely state, Weo, that I don’t have to look at the statistics. I get to deal with the actual people who’ve become homeless (or assisting those who are trying to prevent it from happening). The article is largely correct. I see many, many more now than 3-4 years ago, with no apparent end in sight.

My point is not that there are no poor people. Of course there are; and there will always be. Now is a particularly bad time for many because the marxists are ruthlessly driving as many people into poverty as they can.

The point is that the statistics are manipulated, meaningless, and destructive.

The very few people who absolutely cannot support themselves should be taken care of. The other 95% of “the poor” need a leg up and/or a kick in the pants, not a handout. Yes, that’s tough but the alternative is socialism, and in socialism, 99.9% of the entire country will quickly learn what real poverty is.

So the extra 4.9% (from your 95% to 99.9%) will learn real proverty, previosuly unknown to them? Fine, but 95% or how ever many you want to call those who are unable to afford a roof over their heads, have no roof over their heads. It’s not a motivation issue for them. The welfare queens and kings, and the no-standards Democrats, have practiced the real entitlement philosophy, not the male, white, etc. gimmick phrases used by the Left. As a result the “poor-taker-abusers” who have practiced not building any character, skills, stamina, or discerning thinking will be the most dangerous when entitlements dry up. Currently the poor-taker-abusers + Left think, persuaded by their lack of parents and lack of good parents, that flash-mobbing/robbing and practicing one-punch knock-outs on others (usually on White persons) is fun and it doesn’t hurt them any. No particular problem in their empty minds. Once again – they’ve practiced for many generations being taker and abusers, and not earners, while AT THE SAME TIME growing a lacke of self-respect. These criminals, the dangerous poor, hate themselves for being takers and not earners, and the Government office-seekers keep gaming the handout programs and the the media feces production to ruin the genuine images of hope that lead to proper living and accountable citizenry. So what’s an nice, good, and poor person to do, when trying to support themselves and/or their family among such criminals? Who gets the Governemnt hand-up/hand-out? The criminal that beats up the pooor good person unwilling to do violence just to get in the line for free things. The poor do have it rough. First step: Always throw mobs participants in jail, and prosecute those pointed out in a line-up. Give ‘em to Joe Arpayo in Arizona. They’ll tun out of their tough faces there and learn the value of work. Mobs: Once they’re killing grass and infringing on others properties lines past some lengths of a few hours – and of course, if violence erupts (and causing cops not to see their families due to longer shifts, costing taxpayers more to pay city employee salaries for protestor clean-up and security) the peacefulness of the public gathering has long elapsed.

We must be able to help the gentle poor and and deter the bad poor, though now we’re working from a position of being behind due to years of practicing laziness in the welfare system – check to be used for alcohol and other distractions of the irresponsible and the ungrateful.

If you have had some bad breaks and don’t have sense enough to take advantage of the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS of aid available, most of which is stolen by sharks, then you simply can’t be helped.

Even beyond the taxpayer largesse, there are thousands of charitable organizations that will help you.

It’s hard to imagine that anybody who is willing to make an effort could be genuinely poor in this country.

The probable truth is that you have had some bad breaks and can’t support yourself in a lifestyle you would prefer to have. That’s true for a lot of people, myself included. But poor? By any reasonable standard? Not likely.

What difference does it make what we do? We will never decrease the number living in poverty because we have NO LIMITS on the number of impoverished people we allow to self-immigrate. We have no jobs for people without high school degrees we have heard for decades. And yet we are happy to provide a working class lifestyle for every 8th grade dropout who chooses to come and make his or her life here. The further we diffuse the assistance we can muster from the 51% of households we actually tax, the less impact it has.

That’s actually the “next big thing” in the homeless world. It has been determined that the number one thing that needs to be done is house these people (by any means), and all will flow from there, or so the thinking goes.

Most homeless shelters will disappear within the next ten years, or at least exist in a much smaller capacity, acting largely as a gateway to services. Well, except for the “hardcore” homeless, many of whom actually have developed a taste for that kind of responsibility-free life (we refer to them, in the parlance, as “Shelter Rats”).

My employers have spent quality time purchasing up properties all over the city and surrounding areas. So far, we house around 500 formerly homeless; more properties on the way, as I understand it.

(Disclaimer – I am *not* a Social Worker; my area of expertise is Operations and Property Management)

As the saying goes “Being poor is a financial condition but poverty is a way of life”. You become impoverished, and stay impoverished, because of a series of poor decisions. You can’t get out of poverty by somebody giving you a house, you’ll only get out of poverty by making better decisions and owning your life. Giving people houses doesn’t work, it’s been tried, because people don’t respect what they don’t earn. If we truly want people to rejoin the mainstream of society then we need to stop rewarding poor decisions, we need to abolish public charity because it does nothing but create dependence on the State.

This effort does nothing but reiterate the disastrous public policy of telling people that they are not responsible for their behavior. Telling them that those who are successful just magically won “life’s lottery”, that success is happenstance, and that the individual played no part in the outcome. It’s “You didn’t build that” all over again.

Here’s a quote from a WWII era British movie. “We’re not poor, we just don’t have any money”. Today it’s become, we’re poor even though we have lots of money. Being poor is often just a mindset. There were times in my life when I was close to broke and could have been called homeless, but I have never been poor.

“There have never been so maney poor people” That would probably depend on who is being allowed to define the word “poor”.
We have many very hard working people in the U.S. as defined by the government. Such hard work is includes
1) Bed rest
2) massage
3)excersise
4) journalism
5) personel care activities
6)modivational reading
7)smoking cessation
8) weight loss promotion
9) teacher parent meeting participation
10) helping someone with household tasks and errands

God bless and God help Americia from those who would distroy us from outside and with in.

I don’t understand why anyone is surprised. When Reagan and G.H.W. Bush were in the Oval Office, “the homeless” were all the MSM wanted to talk about.

As soon as Clinton took the Oath of Office, there was no mention of “the homeless” in the press for eight years.

When G.W. Bush beat Gore in 2000, “the homeless” were back, and worse off than ever, within a week of his inauguration. Almost as if somebody said, “OK, the Republicans are back, time to throw them out into the street again”.

When The One Ascended To Richly-Deserved Power in 2009… poof. The homeless vanished again. According to the MSM.

In short, by the standards of mainstream journalism, it is physically and logically impossible for anyone to be homeless when the enlightened progressive movement holds power. Especially when someone from said movement is President.

IMHO, Obama is doing everything he can to expand the ranks of the poor, or at least those who would qualify for some sort of Federal largesse. How else to explain the failure to enforce our borders to prevent the continued influx of poor illegal immigrants from the 3rd world who compete with American citizens and legal immigrants for jobs? How else to explain the “Dream Act” amnesty which will increase the number of individuals who can work legally in this country at a time when the unemployment rate for 18 – 24 year olds is around 25%or higher (worse unemployment stats for blacks and legal Hispanics)? How else to explain the refusal of the Obama administration to enforce the E-verify provisions that would remove unauthorized workers (i.e., illegal aliens)for jobs that could be filled by American workers? How else do you explain Obama’s willingness to include in his cabinet a jobs czar, Jeffrey Immelt, who as CEO of GE closed factories in Wisconsin and moved those jobs to China, or the support for Solyndra (that failed), the electric car, whose components are made in Finland, and other Obama projects that only raised the Federal deficit while providing few if any jobs?
If we had had a foreign government do these things, the American people would have been ready to declare war, but this administration continues to spend massively on dubious public projects, fails to protect our borders, sues states like AZ when they try to enforce US immigration laws, and provides amnesty for illegal aliens who will compete directly with American workers, and anyone is surprised that the unemployment rate is static or increasing?

On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news: For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American.

According to data from Environics Analytics WealthScapes published in the Globe and Mail, the net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.

A few days later, Canada and the U.S. both released the latest job figures. Canada’s unemployment rate fell, again, to 7.2 percent, and America’s was a stagnant 8.2 percent. Canada continues to thrive while the U.S. struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair.

It can happen to ANYBODY! I was a hospital nurse in a Catholic hospital in Colorado Springs. I have put away “for a rainy day” since I was 26. I am now 62. Four years ago, I came down with a bad gall bladder. The hospital’s surgeon botched it, I was in a septic coma for 28 days. After five more weeks in hospital, I was sent home to recover. The day before I was discharged, the hospital TERMINATED me “because I could no longer do the work!” My health insurance went away a month later. I am disabled now and on SS Disability. My wife and I have burned through a good part of our savings in these last four years. Per an employment attorney, what these good Catholics did was legal….You, homelessness can happen to anyone!!